Am I a...Balloonatic, so to speak?

So for my graduation, my Dad offered me the choice between a kindle or a hot-air balloon ride. I took the hot-air balloon ride--as cool as it is to have Star Trek technology available in the present, I refuse to be impressed until we have transporters, or warp drive at the very least. Plus I get tired of looking at computer screens all day. Dead-tree editions are how I rest my eyes. Call me a ludite, call me narrow-minded, call me on the wrong side of history, the fact of the matter is that my copy of 1984 will remain firmly in my hands, and not being erased from before my eyes by the Party.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

Ignorance is strength indeed.

Anyhoo, I didn't know when I'd ever have another chance to take a hot-air balloon ride, paid for and everything, and given the vagaries of fate and the capriciousness of existence and the inevitable entropy that haunts our dreams both sleeping and awake, I thought it best to take advantage while I still could.

Amanda and I left before the butt-crack of dawn, because the flight was up in Park City, and the flight at 6:30. Am. A previous friend had canceled on my citing chronic fatigue and general not-being-a-morning-person-ish. Can't say I blamed her. But, it's also been forever since I saw a bona fide sunrise, so despite only having gotten roughly 3 hours of sleep (most of the night was spent in bed staring at the ceiling chanting "Go to sleep...go to sleep...go...to...sleep..."), it actually felt oddly invigorating to leave at so early. I blasted Soundgarden to wake myself up.

Our pilot was, no joke, nick-named "Wild Bill," and claimed that he had, while living in California, been the sky-diving pilot for Patrick Swayze bless his soul. Their website said that "Wild Bill" is their most requested pilot and with good reason--it is refreshing to be with someone who is doing exactly what they want to do with their life, and are enjoying every minute of it. People like Wild Bill win at every single high school reunion: Guy 1-"I'm a highly paid lawyer and drive a ferrari." Guy 2-"Good for you! I'm a hot-air balloon pilot." Guy 1-"[Explitive deleted] law school and student loans..."

Despite the supposedly June weather it was quite chilly out, so I was wearing a jacket and had brought a scarf and a coat just in case. The latter two quite unnecessary--it turns out, believe it or not, that the term "hot-air balloon" is quite literal, and you are standing directly next to the propane-flame as you ascend. No matter how chilly it is, you will never need more than a light jacket.

Winds were too high in Park City, so we rode in a van down to Heber City, where the pilot picked a random field, and had his crew roll out the balloon. Amanda and I were recruited to hold open the mouth so that it could fill up. First Wild Bill used a fan, but then when there was enough space to start blasting the flame, I could only remember the line from Nabokov: "It was a paradise with a sky of hell-flames, but a paradise nonetheless."

Amanda, who'd agreed to go last minute, told me she'd been having a panic attack the night before, because she suddenly remembered she hates heights, as her experience on roller-coasters indicated. (She probably could've called me about it, I was wide awake.) But balloons are very gentle, quiet, informal, and lovely; pretty much as calming as a roller coaster is thrilling. I also told her about how the only natural predator of the hot-air balloon is the WWI bi-plane and frightened French farmers, so we had nothing to worry about.

And the view? What can I say? Gorgeous. Unfiltered. Idyllic. This wasn't the cramped view over the wing of the airliner, where the destination is more important than the journey, no, this was the view for it's own sake, the sky as a good of first intent. As always, I took many pictures, and the best of them will never capture what I actually saw. A camera-filter by definition cannot capture an unfiltered experience.

We landed in a Middle-School parking lot, which somehow seemed the most natural place in the world to land. Wild Bill told of the first balloon ride, in 1783, made by the Montgolfier brothers, who, as their paper-balloon caught on fire and landed in a French farm field just outside of Paris, the superstitious farmers came out with their pitchforks to destroy this abomination from hell and burn at the stake the two brothers. But fortunately the two brothers had brought wine from Paris to commemorate the landing, and when the farmers read the label, they did what the French do best when faced by the forces of evil--they had a drink. And all of them being good Catholics, they made a new prayer. To commemorate we had orange-juice with champagne, (Amanda and I just had the OJ), Wild Bill called us all "official Balloonatics," and we recited the prayer together:

Les Vents vous Ont Accueilli avec la douceur.
Le Soleil vous a béni avec ses mains chaudes.
Vous avez volé si haut et si bien
que Dieu vous a joint dans votre rire et vous a réglé
doucement de retour encore
dans les bras tendres de Notre Bonne Vieille Terre.

The winds have welcomed you with softness
The sun has blessed you with his warm hands
You have flown so high and so well
that God has joined you in your laughter
and set you gently back again
into the loving arms of Mother Earth